Pocket Knives

Just found this review. It was submitted to Oxfordbands.com, but never used. It's not great, to be frank. There are still not enough Steely Dan covers in the world of indie pop.

THE YOUNG KNIVES/ THE EVENINGS/ THE THUMB QUINTET, Audioscope, Port Mahon

The Thompson Twins. Ben Folds Five. The Thumb Quintet: all bands who can't count their own members. Yes, there are only two in The Thumb Quintet (although there are four thumbs) and they each have a guitar. On the basis of tonight's performance, however, they don't need the extra members.

Ben from eeebleee and a chap from Cardboard (both were in X-1, unless I'm much mistaken) have clearly been listening to a bit of Fahey and Jansch lately, and have swapped their noisy amps for some countrified acoustic fingerpicking. Perhaps at times it isn't perfectly fluid but the playing is still beautiful, galloping rhythms suddenly turning up amongst clusters of plucked motifs, and the botleneck slide parts are achingly lovely. I hope that this is more than a one-off arrangement, boys.

Local acts that shouldn't work at an acoustic night? Well, nervous_testpilot would have quite some trouble, and I'd love to see Winnebago Deal attempt to play with a lute and some bongos, but The Evenings would have to come high on the list, right? Wrong!

Proving once again that they are the most original and resourceful band in town, Mark Wilden and his merry troubadours exchange the synths and breakbeats for glockenspiels, sax and percussion. Somehow their funky dance silliness mutates softly into a warm, organic bramble of sound. And silliness.

The first number is subtle and intoxicating, bobbing on Jo Guest's bowed bass; before we know it, everything's pounding and surprisingly loud; next they turn all melancholic and intense: this gig has it all. I also feel they're all concentrating a little harder than recent gigs (Truck, for example). Hell, they even do a cover of "Born Slippy" and it almost works.

The Young Knives are the only act on who don't meet the problems set by the acoustic dictum head on. They don't play badly, and they're as entertaining as ever, complete with funny headwear and the best Scrabble monologue in pop history, but tonight they're just a lesser version of themselves. Like watching Delicatessen or something equally cinemtically lush on a tiny B/W portable, this gig is fine, but necessarily a compromise.

They aren't the greatest singers in town either, are they? Still, always nice to hear a Steely Dan cover, that's something you don't come across enough nowadays. Or ever, come to think of it.